Whois Gateways

Whois allows you to find the physical locations of, and other information about, IP domains. An easy way to use this tool is to access a Whois Gateway, such as

http://www.nova.edu/Inter-Links/cgi-bin/whois.pl,

with your browser.

Correlating Institutions with Domain Names

For example let's find out about the domain korrnet.org. Accessing the above gateway gives a display like the following into which we enter the domain "korrnet.org":

After we submit the inquiry (by pressing "Return" or "Enter", or by selecting the "Search" button), whois returns the following information: 

Whois Lookup

Knoxville-Oak Ridge Regional Network (KORRNET-DOM)
   KORRnet/University of Tennessee
   600 Henley Street
   Suite 313 Conference Center Building
   Knoxville, TN 37996
   U.S.A.

   Domain Name: KORRNET.ORG

   Administrative Contact:
      IP Network Admin Contact  (UTK-NAC)  
      ipadmin@utk.edu (615) 974-6616
   Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
      IP Network Tech Contact  (UTK-NTC)  
      ipmgr@utk.edu  (615) 974-6616
   Billing Contact:
      Garritano, Tom  (TG521)  
      garritan@UTK.EDU (423) 974-2908

   Record last updated on 16-Feb-96.
   Record created on 16-Feb-96.

   Domain servers in listed order:

   NAMESERVER.UTCC.UTK.EDU   128.169.202.79
   PUNCH.UTCC.UTK.EDU        128.169.201.2

The InterNIC Registration Services Host contains 
ONLY Internet Information (Networks, ASN's, 
Domains, and POC's).  Please use the whois server 
at nic.ddn.mil for MILNET Information.

Correlating Institutions with IP Numbers

The whois gateway can also be used in the opposite direction. Suppose you are given the IP number 199.81.92.10 and you would like to determine the name of the domain and some information about it. For the IP names considered above, the domain is usually the last two entries in the name. For example, in www.korrnet.org, the domain is korrnet.org. However, for IP numbers things are reversed and the domain is usually the first 2 or 3 numbers. Thus, if from the preceding sequence we enter 199.81.92 in the whois window and submit we obtain 

Whois Lookup

Federal Express Corporation (NETBLK-FEDEX101)
   P.O. Box 727
   Memphis, TN 38194-2811

   Netname: NETBLK-FEDEX101
   Netblock: 199.81.0.0 - 199.82.255.0

   Coordinator:
      Johnson, Keith  (KJ6)  keith.johnson@FEDEX.COM
      (901) 375-6609

   Record last updated on 07-Dec-93.

So we have found that 199.81.92.10 is an IP address for the Federal Express Corporation and lies in the domain 199.81.92. From the IP address given above for the Coordinator of this domain, we may deduce that the IP name for this domain is probably fedex.com; you can confirm this by using "fedex.com" in the whois gateway search window.

Finally, let's take a guess that this IP number is the address of a Web server (it need not be, but guesses are free with Web browsers!). Thus, try

http://199.81.92.10/

in your browser and see what you get.

Searching on Institutional Names

The whois gateway will also often give information about networks and domains if you just give it part of a company or institutional name; for example, try each of the following entries in the whois gateway and see what it returns: (1) "microsoft", (2) "vatican", and (3) "disney".

Some More Whois Exercises

Now use the whois gateway to determine the institutions associated with the following addresses. Hint: for IP numbers like the first example, try the first 3 numbers in the whois search; if that doesn't return anything sensible, try just the first 2 numbers, with and without the trailing period.

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